Toronto cops were watching when Rob Ford ‘crack video’ was shown

When Gawker editor John Cook flew to Toronto to watch a video allegedly showing Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine, he wasn’t alone. Apparently six Toronto police officers watched the meeting go down as part of an investigation, only days before the crackgate saga exploded into the news.

According to the Toronto Star, the man trying to sell the infamous video, Mohamed Siad, was being watched by Toronto Police as a suspected gun dealer when they followed him to an empty parking lot on May 14. But he was conducting a very different transaction that night. He was trying to sell “a cellular phone, not a gun,” according to a police surveillance report.

The police were ready to swoop in and arrest Siad in the case of a transaction, but there was no sale.